Kelly McParland: Ontarians deserve a public inquiry into $240 million power plant fiasco

Ontarians deserve a public inquiry into $240 million power plant fiasco

One of the first actions taken by Ontario’s premier designate, Kathleen Wynne, was to offer to work with opposition parties in a spirit of co-operation, in hopes of ending the fractiousness and bad blood that marked the province’s legislature.

On Monay she learned the price of that co-operation. It’s both steep and extremely fair. NDP leader Andrea Horwath called on Wynne to establish a public inquiry into the cancellation of two power plants near Toronto that cost the province at least $240 million and led directly to the prorogation of the legislature.

“This Legislature must be accountable to the people who elected us by providing clarity on key questions. We can start by dealing with the elephant that’s taken a front row seat in the Legislature,” said Horwath. “Premier designate Wynne has the choice to call for a public inquiry now, take it out of the House for a non-partisan review, and allow MPPs to focus on other key matters.”

It’s a tough-minded and astute call, and Horwath is to be congratulated on it. When he announced in October that he would be stepping down, Premier Dalton McGuinty clearly hoped that by simultaneously proroguing the legislature he could end the rancorous debate over the cancelled power plants and allow a new leader to start afresh. It would be an injustice — not to mention an insult to Ontarians — to let him get away with it.

The broad details of the power plant decisions are well known. Worried about losing Liberal seats, the government shut down plans for new gas-fired plants in Oakville and Mississaugua. The Mississauga decision was the more egregious of the two, as it was announced suddenly in the middle of the last election campaign, solely in hopes of saving an endangered seat held by the Liberals. Mr. McGuinty had repeatedly dismissed earlier demands that the plant be relocated away from residential areas, but, with the election in doubt, he reversed himself. By that point construction had already started, and the cost of cancellation has been estimated as anywhere from $200 million to as high as $1 billion.

When opposition parties, after the election, demanded information that would clarify the cost, the Liberals refused to co-operate, then dumped 56,000 pages on legislators in hopes of foiling their quest. In defending his decision to shut down the legislature, McGuinty cited the caustic atmosphere, as if the other parties were to blame for the frustration caused by his government’s refusal to explain its actions or make clear the cost.

It is obvious in Ms. Wynne’s interest to keep the issue from again dominating the legislature once it is recalled. The Liberals would like to pretend that their new leader represents a break from the past, and old disputes should now be filed on a dusty shelf, never to be revisited. Ms. Horwath’s demand puts her on notice that the NDP, and almost certainly the Progressive-Conservatives, won’t be playing along.

It’s not enough to replace one Liberal with another, she stated. Ms. Wynne has to “do better” than Mr. McGuinty. “She has a pretty basic choice … We can either take it out of the legislature and find a place for people to get their answers, or we can go through the process inside the legislature. That’s her decision to make.” One benefit of public inquiries, she added, is that they’re “prorogation-proof,” and can’t be shut down on a whim as Mr. McGuinty did with the legislature.

Between them the NDP and the Progressive-Conservatives hold a one-seat advantage over the Liberals. Ms. Wynne has maintained Ontarians are in no mood for another election. It’s a debatable assertion, but if she hopes to avoid one she will have to accommodate her opponents to some degree. The danger to her is obvious: the inquiry called by Prime Minister Paul Martin into the sponsorship scandal was a large factor in the subsequent collapse of Liberal support and the party’s ultimate relegation to third-party status. The dirty details of the power plant deal could do the same for the Ontario Liberals: certainly it’s unlikely they could emerge unscathed. Mr. McGuinty would hardly have fought so assidluosuly to cover his tracks if he had no reason to be embarrassed.

Ms. Horwath must now back up her demand, and PC leader Tim Hudak should offer his full support in doing so. Ontarians deserve an honest explanation for the waste of so much of their money. And the Liberals need to be taught that you can’t just shut the legislature and bury your mistakes.